More and more, my days just seem to get away from me. I blink and a day is lost, gone, I know not where. Another blink and a week has gone by, lived completely alone except for my cat, Sully, who understands and is my partner in all my adventures.
It’s not that I don’t know how I’ve spent that time or what I’ve done. My meditation master tells me my inability to keep track of time is either because I’m not present or because I’m so present time no longer holds meaning for me. You’d think one of us would know which, if indeed either, of these options is true.
But no, my mind is not going. At least, I don’t believe it is. I know exactly what I do with my days, and it somehow seems of more value to me than what the world dictates I should be doing. I live in my own world.
I lose myself in the act of creation, dreaming up entire worlds, some fantastical, some mundane. They live in my head and emerge whole onto my canvases, breathing in the swirls of paint that bring them to life.
Or, rather, I bring them to life through the strokes and dabs of my brush, bits of my soul leaking through the paint onto the canvas.
My agent appears periodically, chooses a few, or sometimes many, then sends me large checks in the mail from people who pay exorbitant sums for my paintings. Minus her twenty percent, of course.
None of that matters to me as long as I can paint. My life consists of dreams, colors, and canvases. Sometimes I think I will one day step through a canvas into one of my dream worlds and never return. Sully, of course, would join me on this grand adventure.
It is this dream life that carries me from one blink to the next. At times I wake from the dream and realize I haven’t seen or spoken with another living soul for weeks. Except for Sully, of course, we converse all the time, he in his way and I in mine.
But today I must not lose the day. Today I have promised my daughter I will go out with her for lunch. Today I will close the door on my studio and tuck my dream worlds away to await my return. I must hurry and be ready when she arrives to pick me up to live a day of mundane concerns. I will do my familial duty, then return to my sanctuary of paint and canvas, where I will again be free to blink.
This is one of those stories that came upon me as I was falling asleep. Instead of turning on the light and disturbing Jace (my dog, for readers who don’t know), I wrote the first draft using a flashlight for illumination. I created the image for it this morning (the day I revised and teed up for publication).
This piece feels different for me, more eclectic, if you will, than my usual. But I really wanted to focus on the artist’s inner world. How did she experience life? How was it magical and different from the world outside her sanctuary?
What do you think? Is she losing it? Is she just odd? Or is she somehow magical and living a life of deep meaning, if only for herself?
I find it difficult to ask for financial support for my artistic endeavors. Some newsletters do so in every post. I try to space requests out (though I don’t always tee up my stories in order, so I may not realize that sometimes the requests come close together).
But one of the truths of a writer’s life is that if we don’t ask, it doesn’t occur to our readers that our time and efforts hold monetary value.
Most of us don’t think twice about buying an expensive coffee (substitute your favorite drink here if you’re not a coffee drinker), or shelling out an exorbitant amount of money to see a movie and eat popcorn. A dinner out at a nice restaurant can set us back a hundred dollars or more. (I grew up poor. I know this isn’t true for everyone. This is not aimed at those who cannot afford a paid subscription. I value your readership immensely.)
A monthly paid subscription to this newsletter costs $5 (an annual cost of $60). For those who prefer (or can afford) to pay for a yearly subscription, that cost reduces to $4 per month or $48 per year. Please consider financially supporting this newsletter (and by extension, me).
Thank you, if you’ve read this far, whether you take out a paid subscription or not.
Oh! and you can support me by buying merch from my Redbubble store as well.
I loved this post today!
I could so relate to living in my own critter, non people world.
No, she’s not crazy, she just hears her own drummer & listens.
I view artists to be like this, absorbed and focused. Time, whew. Where does it go, I have this in my garden 👩🏻🌾. Good thing Sully is there! I do love your variety and creativity.